Dictionary briefed for Forest Service officers

Of historical value:

I’ll say little about this Chinuk Wawa dictionary because it’s just a selection from a single previous dictionary.

But it’s got value for understanding how it was that a lot of Northwest geographical features received Jargon names in the 20th century.

They were very often taken from this 1922 shortlist; go look and ponder what he left out:

“CHINOOK DICTIONARY“

Briefed by A.H. Hodgson
from
Shaw’s
“The Chinook Jargon and How to Use It”
[which was published in] Seattle, 1909.

The end note of the booklet passingly notes additional authorities: “Gibbs, Hale, Chamberlain, Boas, Shaw, Anderson, Pandosy, Cook, Jewitt, Tolmie, Dawson, St. Onge, Scouler, Eells, Walker, Gard”.)

This bureaucrat Hodgson (Yale Forest School ’09?) isn’t much of a well-known quantity in Northwest history, but in creating and distributing a list of of a few officially approved Chinook Jargon name-elements, he ensured his mark would be left on later maps and lives.